


Coup de Foudre

by godtiermeme



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiermeme/pseuds/godtiermeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the death of their mother, unofficial siblings Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman are sent to a boarding school known as Trost Academy. On the plus side, this allows for them to spend more time with Armin Arlert, a good friend of theirs who attends the school. It also affords them the opportunity to meet new people and, for Eren Jaeger, one of these people just happens to be a young, enigmatic janitor who enjoys lurking around the French building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated!  
> The title is French. Its literal translation is "bolt of lightning" and its general usage (as a phrase) is in reference to (EDIT: Fic is probably a bad way to practice French) "love at first sight".

Eren Jaeger wasn’t exactly sure why he was stuck in a French class at a stuffy boarding school. He wasn’t sure why he was in a room without heating when it was below freezing outside, nor why Armin’s grandfather was able to convince his own father that sending him to this school—Trost Academy—was even a good idea. Sure, Armin went to it. And Armin turned out fine. But… Well… Eren, as far as he was concerned, was not Armin…

“So, class,” began Eren’s enthusiastic teacher, Ms Zoe, “Let’s start with some review.”

“Ugh,” was the collective response.

“Fantastic!” was the teacher’s retort as she straightened her rectangular glasses and turned towards the board. ‘ _Passé composé_ ’ are the words scrawled in oddly perfect cursive across the old-fashioned chalkboard.

Hmph, Eren scoffed within the silence of his mind. They didn’t even have whiteboards at the school. Having thought this, he proceeded to stare listlessly out the window. He watched as the school’s apparently infamous janitor wandered about, picking up trash and rearranging the rocks in the garden adjacent to the French building.

Levi… Yeah, that was his name… At least, Eren was pretty sure that that was his name. From what he knew and witnessed, the guy was an obsessive clean freak with little tolerance for student misconduct and disrespect. He also had the odd habit of casually climbing up onto and power washing the roofs…

“Eren! Eren!” Armin’s voice pulled Eren from his pensive state. He stared blankly at his blond-haired companion and raised a brow. “Wha—?”

“Jaeger, I’m waiting for an answer,” Zoe’s voice drew his attention next.

He turned a bewildered blue-green gaze towards the source and managed to boggle, “I’m… What was the question?”

“The question was…” At this point, the door to the building swung open. The familiar janitor casually strided in and dropped into the empty seat to Eren’s right. Ms Zoe, however, ignored the occurrence, merely continuing, “What is the past tense conjugation of ‘ _faire_ ’ for the subject ‘ _tu_ ’?”

“Um…” Eren chewed his lip. He glanced towards Armin, though this desperate plea was met by the expected ‘your fault’ look. In desperation, eyed his page, hoping that, somehow, the answer would be there. And, to his surprise, it was—penned upon the third line from the top in the last vestiges of a black pen’s ink. _"_ _Tu as fait?"_

“That is correct, Jaeger. Glad to see you’re paying attention,” the teacher commended, though he paid no heed to the complement.

In fact, at this point, Eren was too busy gawking at the smug janitor in the seat beside him. He was too busy watching as the man’s grey eyes met his gaze, seemingly affirming that—yes—he had, indeed, given him the answer to the question for no reason other than a moment of smug satisfaction. Watching as the same grey eyes then drifted inattentively towards the ceiling, where they caught glimpse of a fly and proceeded to follow it until it rather abruptly dropped, dead, from the sky—as if struck down by the man’s keen glare.

“Who are you?” murmured the bewildered teen.

“The janitor,” the man countered sharply. “Why the hell does it matter?” As he spoke, he folded his arms and furrowed his brows in a manner indicative of disdainful disinterest.

“Well, yeah, I already fucking knew that,” Eren responded irritably. “I meant your name, smartass. What’s your name?”

The man raised a thin brow and sigh. He shrugged—as if the issue were some dismissible weight upon his shoulders—and responded dispassionately, “Levi. What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, I just—”

“Levi!” The teacher’s voice thundered above both Eren’s conversation and his thoughts. “Stop bothering the students!”

“Hm,” the janitor resignedly sighed, “Yes ma’am. I shall do so immediately.” With this, he rose. His odd necktie—a cravat, if Eren’s recollection was correct (and it was)—lifted off the table as he did so. It fell so that it rested in a slightly lopsided position. He cast a quick, enigmatic glance in Eren’s direction once more; then, without further explanation, he departed.

The door clicked shut and the man’s slender frame disappeared—presumably to an area in need of maintenance. Afterwards, the class continued as usual. For another hour, Eren and Armin sat through the enthusiastic droning of Ms Zoe.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know why,” Armin began as the pair wandered away from the building following the class’ dismissal. “But that one guy gave me the creeps…”

“Who? Jean? Fucking finally!” Eren grumbled.

“No! Not him. Jean’s a cool guy. I’m talking about the janitor guy…”

“Hmph,” Eren let forth what could only be described as a cross between a laugh and a cough, “Of course Jean’s cool. He’s cool because he keeps you warm at night, eh?”

“Eren, we’ve discussed how I don’t like to talk about that,” Armin murmured.

“Fine,” sighed Eren, perhaps realising the error of his ways, “I won’t mention it. But, really, there are a lot of janitors around here. Which one?”

“The um…” Armin’s gaze drifted about aimlessly until they settled on a distant figure casually walking back and forth across a suspended pipeline which hung over a concrete outside eating area at an altitude of approximately three storeys. At this odd figure, he pointed. “Him! The one that does all those stupid stunts when he thinks no one’s looking.”

“Er, you mean Levi? The guy who sat next to me in French?”

“Yeah, if that’s his name,” shrugged the blond. “He’s just… Strange… Did you notice he had on eyeliner?”

“To each their own, I suppose,” Eren responded. “Besides, he seems like an okay guy.”

“To you, maybe, but…” Armin began to speak, though his voice trailed off into silence quickly. “I just… You know what? Never mind. You’re right. He can’t be that bad…”

“Exactly,” retorted the Germanic brunette, “…And aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Jean right now?”

“Wha—?” Armin bungled for a moment before ogling at his watch. “Shit! I am! But don’t say it so damn loud next time, Eren!”

“It wasn’t that loud,” protested he. “I—”

The argument is cut short by Armin’s intervention—a brief wave and a rapid, “See you later!” as he made a mad dash for the campus pizza place.


	2. Chapter 2

The day after Eren’s first encounter with Levi just so happened to be a Saturday. Most of the kids were picked up by their parents and guardians on Friday—as per usual—to spend the weekend at home. Most of the people that Eren knew were among these departures—Sasha, Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, and Gunther were just a few of them. Even Armin’s grandfather had picked him up. A fishing trip, apparently.

Eren understood. Everyone liked family time. Everyone loved weekends. Everyone, of course, but him. He hated them—weekends and holidays. He loathed watching everyone he knew leave him at the school his father was too busy to bother to pick him up from. Mikasa seemed to fare much better, but Eren—well—Eren just didn’t liked being practically the only person on campus.

It is for this aforementioned agglomeration of reasons that Eren found himself sprawled out on the grassy cliff which the school was perched upon.

 _Scorpion… Grasshopper…_ He stared listlessly at the sky, silently identifying each puffy white mass which drifted by. So entrenched in this activity was he that the approach of the enigmatic janitor managed to slip past him—until the man cleared his throat, at least…

“Fuck!” he exclaimed.

“Ha,” Levi countered. “That’s what you get for just sprawling out on the grass I just cut.”

“You…” Eren sat up and shook free the various bits of foliage which had managed to become entangled within his brown hair. “…Why are you still here?”

A shrug and a sigh served as a response. “Because I had to take a dump and it was just so horrifically huge that it kept me in the bathroom past the time at which they lock the gates.”

The teen replied with a frustrated groan. He gave brief thought to whether the man was truly a shitty person or if he was just sarcastic, though such musings rapidly vanished in wake of an expected reply. “I doubt that’s true…”

“Oh, no!” Levi responded with a wide-eyed (or, at least, as wide as his thin eyes could get) look of what could be taken for condescending false shock. At the same time, he waved his hands in the air as if he were some sort of puppeteer without puppets. Or, perhaps, he was arranging an invisible game of ‘find the marble’… “No! I really did. And I have the shit to prove it. It’s on display now. At the front of the school. Honestly, though, must you really ask such an unnecessary question? I’m here because I work here.”

“ …Do you notice that you’re rude or do you just open your mouth and say whatever the fuck comes to mind?” Eren spoke without thinking, though he had little regret for his words.

“ _De rien,_ ” the man responded in flawless French. “Honestly, people take things too seriously. If you want me to leave you alone, just shit it out.”

“No, I just wondered…” Eren began.

“Yes, and a stray rat wondered what would happen if it wrapped its shit-covered teeth around an exposed electrical wire. And guess what happened to it,” Levi interjected with what Eren deemed to be an unrelated comment. “So, what’s your name?”

“Eren… Eren Jaeger… And you’re Levi, right?”

“Levi,” he folded his arms and leaned his weight against the upturned end of his broom, “You’re right. _En effet. Oui._ All that fancy stuff…” once more, he attempted to enhance the meaning of his words by gesturing. However, just as before, this action only made him seem as if he was awkwardly swatting at an invisible gnat.

“And… You know French?” Eren inquired further.

“ _Oui_. And, from what I’ve seen, you know very little. This matters to you… why?” Levi cast a quick glance at the sky prior to pulling a packet of  black cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He gripped the stick of tobacco between his teeth and lit it with one hand. At the same time, his other hand haphazardly straightened his idiotic neckpiece.

“I don’t know… I was just asking…”

“I know that. And calm down. I’m not trying to jump down your throat or anything…” He paused at this point and took a deep drag from his cigarette. He closed his eyes and let a cloud of smoke flow from his nostrils. “Some people say I sound harsh, though… Like Hanji… She says I always seem like I’m angry.”

“Not angry… Just… You sound like you think everyone’s below you,” Eren responded honestly.

Levi shrugged. “ _Bien entendu…_ ” he breathed through another plume of carcinogenic smoke.

“What does that mean?”

The man responded with dismissive wave of his hand. “ _Trois fois rien_. Next to nothing.”

“Mhm,” Eren retorted with a slow, skeptical nod. “So… Do you and Ms Zoe know each other? Because it seemed to me like you do…”

“ _Ouais_. We’re friends,” the janitor answered dismissively. “ _Elle est gentillette_. I wouldn’t try talking to her at length about French, though. She gets a bit passionate.”

For some reason, Eren found at this point that he was (for a brief moment) fairly entertained by the Frenchman and his rude sense of what may or may not have been humour. Therefore, he asked another question. “How old are you, anyhow?”

“Twenty,” Levi shrugged. “ _Tu commonces à me faire chier._ ”

At this point, the short-lived entertainment value of the commentary began to rapidly fade. “And I assume you’re just going to keep spewing out this French?”

 _“Oui. Pourquoi? Ça te pose un problème?”_ Levi countered smugly.

“Yes,” was Eren’s terse reply. “It’s the fucking weekend…” He dropped back onto the grass and returned to staring aimlessly at the clouds. “I’d rather not think about my classes until I absolutely need to.”

 _“La réalité et toi… Vous ne vous entendez pas, n’est-ce pas?”_ the man snickered. “But, I suppose I should leave you to consider how screwed over you’ll be if you don’t bother with your classes or whatever it is that I—as un adulte responsible—am supposed to say.” Once again, Levi awkwardly motioned in the air. A smirk crossed his face for a brief moment and, then, without prior discussion, he turned his back to Eren. _“Au revoir! Tu devrais poursuivre votre tailleur en justice.”_

Eren opened his mouth to comment, though he abruptly shut it. He assumed that talking back to the still-enigmatic janitor was likely a bad idea for both involved parties. However, he had the creeping suspicion that he’d just had his lacklustre fashion sense insulted. In fact, if his negligible grasp on French and his deductions served correct, he was certain that he’d been told to sue his tailor…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some rough translations of the things that aren't cognates/well=known or translated in the fic...
> 
>  
> 
>  **De rien-** Just in case, "de rien" is the basic equivalent of "you're welcome"  
>  **Bien entendu-** Of course  
>  **Ouais-** Informal way of saying "Yes" (or "Oui"). Basically, "yeah".  
>  **Tu commonces à me faire chier.-** You're starting to piss me off.  
>  **La réalité et toi…** Reality and you... [next part of phase below]  
>  **Vous ne vous entendez pas...-** Roughly "You [two] don't get along" [last part below]  
>  **N'est-ce pas?-** Do you?


	3. Chapter 3

_One… Two… Three…_ The enigmatic man known only as Levi counted—he bided his time wisely—and, upon hitting that final digit, he pushed off the ground with his left foot. He anchored his right against the vertical wall before him and, as if by some force of anti-gravity magic, he bounded upwards. He took a few steps, reached up, and gripped one of the overhanging decorative balconies of what was known as Residence Hall 2—a boys-only living space capable of housing a maximum of two teenage males in each of its rooms (and, with a grand total of sixteen rooms, its total maximum capacity was thirty-two),

 _One… Two… Three…_ Levi pulled himself up and balanced himself on top of the faux balcony. He glanced about for a moment and, as if nothing had happened, prior to taking from his jacket pocket a small bottle of window cleaning solution and a rag. As one would logically assume, this sequence of events ended with him cleaning off a particularly nasty and fairly hard-to-reach window. (Normally, this window wasn’t cleaned. Most of the janitors avoided doing such seemingly idiotic stunts as Levi and the faux balcony prevented any extended-reach cleaning products from functioning properly.)

As he was doing this, however, there came an unexpected interference—a familiar voice.

“Levi!” Hanji Zoe’s voice causes the man to drop his supplies in shock and teeter dangerously atop the second-storey architectural feature.

 _“Merde!”_ Levi responded. As he spoke, he slipped one foot away from the stone railing upon which it balanced. He let himself fall for a brief moment prior to catching himself on the useless ornamental floor about one yard beneath his former spot. He glanced downwards and gauged the risks—the distance, landing surface, ground stability—then, he swung forward. He touched his feet against the wall two feet in front of him and pushed off of it. As a result of this considerably illogical maneuver, he came down on the ground hard, though his expertly executed backward shoulder roll across the grass seemed to lighten this impact. _“Faites-le vous-même!”_ He exclaimed.

“Rude,” responded the woman before whom Levi came to a stop. “And when are you going to learn that all those stupid stunts that you seem to enjoy doing so much are dangerous as hell, Levi? _Sacrebleu_ , you’re like a child.”

 _“Merci, Hanji. Qu’est-ce c’est?”_ This blunt response was accompanied by Levi dramatically folding his arms across his chest and arching an inquisitive brow.

“Nothing, actually…” Hanji shrugged. “Why do you assume that I want something?”

“You normally don’t speak in French when addressing me. When you do, you want something. _Qu’est-ce c’est?_ I’d rather not ask again, as it happens to be window cleaning day,” Levi countered expressionlessly.

“Fine then,” the woman sighed, _“Tu va, s’il vous plaît.”_

“ _Peut-être_ … Maybe…” Despite this indecisive response, Levi followed his comrade. He fell in stride with her and trailed alongside as they wound their way through the nearby agricultural science greenhouses’ landscaped gardens.

Hanji, meanwhile, kept her eyes locked on the path ahead. She never once turned to look at Levi. Rather, she seemed to be at least partially distracted by some of her own thoughts. _“Le garçon…_ Eren _, non?”_

_“Ouais.”_

“You seem to be fond of him. At the very least, I know you gave him that answer, Levi,” Hanji’s casual reply was met by a brief moment of tense silence on Levi’s part.

However, the man eventually gathered his wits about him and disregarded his momentary social stumble. “He’s nice enough… _Il n’est pas spécial_ , if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Hm… I doubt that, for some reason,” Hanji spoke as if such misgivings were nothing of particular importance. The way she cut her eyes at her companion, however, seemed to indicate otherwise.

Levi, of course, knew (even without seeing his friend’s glance) that the air of casual conversation was a mere façade for a more important issue; but, he chose to ignore the deeper meaning. Instead, he continued, “ _Bien sûr_. Of course, Hanji. You doubt a lot of things. You’ve the mind of a scientist, after all. You’d probably doubt that shit actually came from butts if you had never before seen feces drop from a human’s ass and splash into a toilet.”

 _“Grossier,”_ retorted the woman. “And that isn’t true… Okay…” she sighed and shifted her gaze to the ground. “Maybe it’s partially true. But it’s still disgusting.”

Levi returned with a faint flicker of a smirk. However, its brevity made it hard to confirm the validity of such an action—even Levi, himself, was unsure of whether or not he had cracked a small grin. What he was sure of, however, was his response to Hanji: _“Bon appétite!”_

“Levi…!” Hanji Zoe’s halfway-bemused halfway-disgusted response rapidly trailed off into silence as the figure to whom she had been speaking sprinted towards a nearby dumpster and, after a single leap, landed perfectly atop it. She watched, then, as this same figure offered her a curt wave prior to bounding up a wall, vaulting up—onto the roof of the campus’ most recently constructed cafeteria (Mess Hall 3)—and disappearing from sight.

 

* * *

 

Once Levi was certain of his stability atop the gravel-covered concrete building covering, he set himself to work. He wandered about for awhile, performing odd tasks as he did so. Here, he picked up a pebble (which he proceeded to nonchalantly throw from the roof). There, he cleaned a spot of bird poop from the hood of the cafeteria’s chimney. Here, he cleaned off a grimy skylight and so on. Whilst performing these menial tasks, the man hummed absentmindedly to himself.

The susurrant melody was nothing special. In fact, being the most popular French lullaby, it was quite common. _“Dodo, l’enfant Do”_ , it was called and, from within the more private depths of his mind, Levi could hear the lyrics with unprecedented clarity.

_“Dodo, l’enfant do,_   
_L’enfant dormira bien vite,_   
_Dodo, l’enfant do,_   
_L’enfant dormira bientôt…”_

Levi let forth a loud sigh as he recalled the lyrics. He knelt before the air conditioning unit set atop the building and gave it a quick general inspection. Again, a soft, familiar voice sang from the murkier depths of his mind…

 _“Une poule blanche,_   
_Est là dans la grange,_   
_Qui va faire un petit coco,_   
_Pour l’enfant qui va fair’ dodo.”_

Another sigh escaped the man. He finished his inspection of the machinery prior to folding his arms across his chest and wandering to the edge of the rooftop. At this point, he glanced down.

Even with a mere storey and a half between him and the ground, he felt large (a feeling which, standing at only five foot three inches, was hard to come by). The few stray students who passed by the school along the nearby walkway were almost as small as the wooden toy soldiers he could recall playing with as a child.

 _“C’est la vie…”_ Levi murmured, an air of discontent hanging about him. For a minute or two more, he continued to watch as the small group of students wandered about. However, once this time had expired, he grew bored (or, at least, that’s the reason he gave to himself) of observing this occurrence and returned to his cleaning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Merde!** Shit!  
>  **Faites-le vous même!** Do it yourself!  
>  **Qu'est-ce c'est?** What is it? [*mentioned twice]  
>  **Tu va, s'il vous plaît.** (You) Follow me, please.  
>  **Le garçon** The boy  
>  **Ouais** Equivalent of "yeah"/Less formal form of "oui" [*in last chapter]  
>  **Il n'est pas spécial** He isn't special.  
>  **C'est la vie.** That's life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bleargh i'm sorry this is so short.

“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Under normal circumstances, the rabid, bloodthirsty chants of enthralled teens served only to draw further attention to the brawl which happened to be occurring in the middle of the entrance courtyard. However, with it being a Sunday, most of the staff had left. In fact, there were only seven staff members on campus at that time and six of them wanted nothing to do with the fistfight.

Not surprisingly, though, the last one—Levi—had no qualms about breaking up an unwarranted scuffle. But not, of course, before he took a moment to assess the situation.

He knew both of the kids. (Naturally, he would, as he had a habit of ‘accidentally’ sneaking peeks at student files when he cleaned up the administrative office.) The one with the half-bottle-blond half-natural-brown hairdo was Jean Kirchstein and, obviously, the raging brunet was Eren Jaeger.

According to the rumours he’d heard floating around campus, the pair were notoriously at odds. It apparently started when Eren’s intelligent and naturally blond friend started dating Jean. Of course, it hadn’t been a problem until Eren showed up at the school…

Oh… What Levi would give to go back to not having to break up petty relationship scrabbles… Alas, he could give nothing to relieve himself of such tragically asinine tasks. What he could and did do, however, was wander forward—until both boy’s heads were within his reach—and bash both heads against one another. At the same time, he let forth a sigh of, _“Sacrebleu…”_

“Shit!” was Eren’s response.

“Goddamn!” was Jean’s.

A simple smirk and served as Levi’s as he gripped both boys by the back of their shirts and shoved them away from one another. “You—” he jabbed a thin, pale finger in Jean’s direction, “Bottle Blond, I don’t know you. Therefore, you are free to go. Don’t hurt yourself further than you already have on your way out. And… You…” A pair of thin, grey eyes turned towards Eren, “I’d say you should know better, but I doubt you actually do. _Tu es stupide_.”

“I—” Eren began a futile attempt to protest, though it was rather abruptly cut off.

“You’re bleeding from your lip, idiot.” Levi reached into his pocket and drew forth a pristine white handkerchief and threw it towards the brunet. _“Prenez le chiffon. Ayez épongé le sang.”_

“Wha—?” began Eren.

“Do it,” hissed Levi. “You should be glad that I don’t feel like reporting you.” He folded his arms across his chest and let forth a loud, discontented sigh.

“You— You’re not going to turn me in?” Eren countered, bewildered. “Why?”

“Because… I have a deal for you…” Levi stuffed his hands into the pockets of his grey denim jeans and walked towards his target. His meticulously polished black dress shoes clopped against the concrete like bare hooves against a cobblestone road with every step. The sound stopped once he reached Eren and, with a sly grin, knelt beside the confused teen. “You help me clean for the rest of the year, and I won’t turn you in. Ever. You can fight as much as you want and, if it’s me who catches you, you can rest assured that you won’t get in trouble.”

“So you want me to be your goddamn servant?” Eren muttered, likely sore from what appeared to be a thorough ass-kicking.

“En un sens…”  Levi shrugged. “Now, tell me, would you rather have fighting on your record after less than two weeks at this institution?”

Eren frowned. His brows slanted inwards, and his usual look of anger deepened to one of pensive anger. He glanced at the bloodied handkerchief and resignedly sighed. “Fine,” he growled, “You have a deal… But don’t the other janitors help out?”

This inquiry was met with some quiet, derisive chuckling. “They help about as much as a dead frog will help keep away flies.” At this point, Levi rose to his feet. He rubbed his hands absentmindedly against his pants legs—presumably to rid himself of some imperceptible dirt—and offered a hand out to Eren. Once the boy accepted this offering, he helped him to his feet. Then, with a roll of his eyes, he commented, “You’re not the brightest, Eren.”

“Thanks for saying something I don’t already know,” the addressee responded sarcastically.

 _“De rien,”_ Levi grumbled as he made an abrupt about-turn and began to wander off.

“Wait!”

The call from behind halted Levi’s retreat. He turned, stared blankly at Eren—the source of the disruption—and raised a thin, minimally interested brow. “Hm?”

“I… Guess I’m supposed to thank you for this?” Eren murmured.

“Possibly. Possibly not. _Ce n’est pas grave._ ” Levi’s response was coupled with a disinterested shrug and a dismissive nod of farewell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tu es stupide...** You are stupid.  
>  **Prenez le chiffon.** (You) Take the napkin.  
>  **Ayez épongé le sang.** (You) Wipe up the blood.  
>  **De rien...** You're welcome.  
>  **Ce n'est pas grave.** It is no problem/It's no big deal.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, now, back to Eren with the weather...

“Shit!” Eren yelped as he stumbled backwards, his hands instinctively cupping around his bleeding nose. “What the hell was that for, Mikasa!?”

“Your stupidity,” Mikasa replied as she wiped the blood from her knuckles. “Seriously, Eren, what the hell were you thinking?”

Eren shrugged, his eyes still cast downwards and at his bloodied palms. “I was thinking…” he mumbled, “That you’d be happier if I didn’t get myself expelled within the first two weeks. I mean… It’s a good deal, isn’t it?”

“Eren,” began Mikasa, “Let’s say you went to a store and saw two jackets—both the exact same—on a rack. The one on the left was ten dollars and the one on the right was three hundred. As far as deals go, you bought the one on the right. Does that make sense?” Once this statement was finished, she opened the door leading into the coffee shop in which she and Eren met on a weekly basis.

“I suppose so…” Eren muttered as he dropped into a seat at a random two-person table..

Mikasa sighed, took the seat across from her companion, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You suppose so. Okay. Well, that’s good enough for you… Just… If this ends badly, don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.” At this point, it seemed as if she reached the conclusion that her work was done. She closed her eyes, folded her arms across her chest, and tilted her chair back so as to lift the front two legs of her chair about an inch and a half from the ground.

“What could go wrong?” Eren responded with a bitter laugh. “Really, Mikasa, you’re always telling me that I’m going to get myself into trouble and I never do.” Here, Eren concluded his statement. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled forth a packet of cheap cigarettes. In one fluid motion, he stuck one of the paper-contained rolls of tobacco into his mouth and lit it with his other hand. He flicked his wrist a few times to put out the flame of the match he’d used to ignite the cigarette.

“Ugh,” was Mikasa’s response to this particular sequence of events.

Eren ignored this disapproving gesture. In fact, he tipped the plain white package towards his slightly older adopted sibling and raised a brow. “Want one?” As he spoke, the cigarette bobbed gently up and down. Bits of chalky, burnt-out tobacco drifted from its pulsating red end and onto the table.

“Dear God, no,” she sighed. “Unlike you, I don’t have a formidable death wish.”

To this commentary, Eren responded with a groan. “Seriously, Mikasa, stop! You treat me like I’m five.”

“Because you are,” she breathed, pulling her red scarf up so as to cover her mouth and the top of her nose. Watching this, Eren noted that a hint of something which flashed in her eyes—sadness, perhaps, though Eren personally and wrongfully doubted this. This odd emotion disappeared just as quickly as it had initially appeared, however, and she calmly continued, “…but, I’ll never be able to convince you of such.”

“Only because it’s not fucking true,” Eren hissed prior to taking a deep drag from his cigarette. He tried to pull that stupid stunt that Jean always did—the one that always seemed to catch Armin’s attention—where he’d exhale the smoke through his nose. This attempt, however, was just that—an attempt. It ended with him choking on his own cigarette smoke and coughing for at least a minute before finally concluding that the entire thing had been an ill-fated bad decision from the start.

“Smooth,” commented Mikasa as she absentmindedly stirred the tea in front of her. “Honestly, Eren, it’s bad enough that you smoke on campus or even at all. But do you really have to try all those stupid, pretentious stunts?”

“They’re not pretentious,” grumbled the considerably embarrassed teen. “I mean… You never say anything when Jean does them.”

To this, Mikasa countered with a snort of vaguely bitter laughter. “That’s because I’m not related to him. I am, however, related to you… In case you’d forgotten. Now, tell me more about this janitor—Levi, right?”

Eren sighed and folded his arms across his chest. He manipulated the cigarette haphazardly about in his mouth as he thought. Ashy tobacco remnants fluttered from the glowing end of the cigarette and onto his lap. “Well… I mean… He seems nice enough. Blunt… Obviously French… I don’t know…” a disinterested shrug served as punctuation, “You just have to meet him, I guess.”

“Well, then, I’ll start arranging that,” responded Mikasa as she took a final sip from her coffee. Once her cup was empty, she set it aside and calmly rose from her seat. “I’ll see you later, Eren,” she commented prior to walking out of the coffee shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [No Levi, No French, No translations]


	6. Chapter 6

Eren’s first day of working with Levi began in a dank, dark, overstuffed storage building. The rain outside pounded against the corrugated tin roof like gunfire, and the rumbles of thunder mimicked the commotion of distant cannonfire. The concrete foundation seemed to shake with every cannonade.

“Great day to be working, eh?” Levi grumbled as he effortlessly surmounted a tall filing cabinet. _“C’est ne pas grave… Le travail élonge de nous trois grand maux: l’ennui, le vice et le besoin.”_

“What the fuck does that mean!?” Eren responded in confusion.

“Hm?” Levi turned and raised a brow. A smirk played at his lips, though it never managed to fully appear. “It means that you’re not going to be given petty tasks. _Tiens_. Take this…” At this point, Levi disappeared behind the unit. (Eren could only presume that he dropped behind it.)

Seconds later, he re-emerged. In his hands, he held a formidable stack of books. Many of the pages were considerably yellowed by age and each seemed to be covered in dust and dirt. He dropped the books in front of Eren and—after the clamorous thud of impact—while the dust cloud settled, he instructed, “Wipe off the covers. See if these things are worth anything. If not, then put them aside. The school wants more space in here and too much of it is already occupied by useless books kept by overly sentimental, dead principals. _C’est vraiment honteux_.”

Eren ogled at the stack. He began to wonder if the reward was worth the price he was paying, though these seeds of doubt were quickly killed off by his mental assertion of ‘Yes, it is.’ Even so, he couldn’t help but sigh as he took a clean, dry cloth from Levi’s mop bucket. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. _Ne merde pas_ —Don’t fuck up.” Having said this, the man tugged briefly at the left sleeve of his tattered, forest green jacket. He then shoved his hands into the outerwear’s baggy pockets and, with a seemingly contemptuous huff, turned and wandered off—deeper into the depths of the surprisingly large storage unit.

“Yes sir,” Eren sighed to no one in particular (as, by the time he said this, Levi had departed). He glanced forlornly at his wristwatch, noted the time, and rolled his eyes. “I could be hanging out with Armin right now,” he growled to himself, “But, no, I’m stuck doing these stupid chores…”

He ran the cloth over the cover of the topmost volume. _Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: Second Edition_ was written in a formal, white, serifed font which was set awkwardly over a painting of dancing ballerinas. Eren sighed and took a moment to ponder the background image. He recalled that Armin had, at one point, talked to him about art and painting. (Neither he nor his blond friend could draw—much less paint—to save their lives.) ‘Degas’ was one of the names Armin mentioned. Apparently, the guy had some weird sort of weird thing for ballerinas. Thus, Eren concluded that the image was likely painted by this ‘Degas’ (whoever the hell he was). He flipped through the pages, and was greeted with countless nude paintings of varying types. “Whatever,” he declared the book useless and lobbed it about a yard away from him. It landed with a resonant _thump_ and its old, dried out cover cracked away from the spine.

By the time it had hit the ground, however, Eren had already decided to ignore it. He had moved on to the next book. This one—at least according to formal red font which was emblazoned upon its plain grey cover—was entitled _A Pictorial History of World War II_. Beneath this a worn-out American seal. Eren immediately discarded this book in a manner similar to before. It landed heavily, and he moved onto the next tome.

 _On the Origin of Species_ was next in line. Eren, being (for once) aware of the book’s importance, considered keeping this volume. However, he decided against this decision after further inspection revealed that the pages were faded beyond any hope of reasonable use. He tossed it aside.

He continued. And continued. He opened book after book, stared at one cover after the other, and threw an indeterminably large number’s worth of dollars in books away. Slowly, he came to the bottom of the stack.

‘Only ten books left…’ though he. ‘Only nine! Eight!’ (and so on.)

Finally, he reached the ultimate goal. “One,” he breathed, “One fucking book left!” He ran the cloth over its cover and, to his surprise, found himself staring at a fairly recent-looking book. The school name and logo were printed in black upon the white, hardback cover. Beneath this, in a golden, serifed font, was a year—one which was two less than the then-current specifications.

For some curious reason, Eren felt compelled to open it. He gently lifted the cover away and flipped through the pages. Foreign names—names like “Gunter Schulz”, “Mike Zakarius”, and “Erd Gin”—filled the page after page. Then, from what seemed to be out of nowhere, was one familiar name. “R., Levi”. Above the plain black text was a picture—the standard image of a high school senior jammed into a generic tuxedo of questionable authenticity and forced before a camera. What was odd about the picture, however, was the look on Levi’s face. Unlike the people in the photos surrounding his, there was no smile—not even a trace of one. Rather, he maintained the same look of perpetual displeasure and pensive introspection that Eren was (at that point) beginning to familiarise himself with.

Naturally, this odd occurrence revived Eren’s smouldering interest in the book. It prompted him to begin turning page after page, scanning every bit of text for that familiar four-letter glyph—Levi. He passed by the sports pages without mention. Likewise, none of the music organisations mentioned him. No academic clubs included him, either. In fact, he was mentioned only once, aside from his picture; he was listed as a blurry figure in the background of a poorly framed photo of two cheerleaders talking. From what could be made out in said photo, he seemed to be reading some sort of book.

At last, and with only these two mentionings of him spotted, Eren turned the final page. And it was at this point that his curiosity really got a kick in the ass; because, on that final page—scrawled in sloppy print upon the inner white of the back cover—were two lines of text. “This is property of” was the first line; “Levi ‘Smith’” was the second. (Eren noted that the last name was in quotations—as if it were some sort of false name or alias.)

Furthermore, Eren found one final thing—an abnormally thick envelope. Its edges were torn, battered, and worn out; its stamp had long since been peeled off. The names on the front were smudged beyond recognition. Curiosity got the better of Eren, and he pulled it from where it was firmly wedged between the back cover and last page. He gently lifted the envelope open. Inside, he found an assortment of papers, all neatly folded and aligned in three columns.

Could he open it here? He wondered. His eyes darted back and forth and, for a brief moment, he considered it. But, as luck would have it, he decided against doing so. It was too risky to open these with him around, he reasoned. Thus, he crammed the envelope into his pocket.

And it was at the moment that the teenager lifted his hand from his pocket and closed the book that Levi reappeared. With him, he carried four more towers of outdated textbooks and novels. He dropped these before Eren prior to approaching him. “You sorted all those books? Hm… I guess you’re not half bad…” His eyes drifted towards the book in Eren’s hands and a hint of interest flashed across his face. “Hm. What’d you find there?”

“I think it’s your yearbook? I mean, it has your name in the back…” Eren muttered.

“It might be, though I don’t know how it got in here…” Levi sighed. “You can throw it away.”

“Yes sir,” responded Eren, hurling the book into the messy pile of rejected tomes.

“Good. Then, if that’s it, you’re dismissed,” grumbled Levi.

“Thank you, sir.” Eren offered a curt nod of appreciation and took his leave.

 

* * *

 

Upon returning to his dormitory, Eren removed the envelope from his pocket. He threw it onto the desk which he and Armin shared and pulled forth a single, five-page document. One document, he decided, was enough… One document per day motivate him and keep him interested without heedlessly charging into something he may or may not have wanted to get into.

He sighed and looked at the slightly yellowed paper in his hand. Unfurling it, he revealed what appeared to be a letter—the contents of which had obviously been composed using a typewriter—which began:

_“In regards to problem student R., Levi…”_

Here, Eren had to pause. The entirety of the first two lines had, at some point and by some unknown force, been impossibly blurred and distorted. The text was illegible until the third line, which read:

_“…conduct. This student has demonstrated a general lack of concern for those with whom he does associate and is known to become irritable when questioned about his behaviour.”_

A line break separated the conclusion of this portion of the document from the next.

_“Evidence has been brought before the school council and administration which suggests emotional instability and overall stupidity. Grades show a disinterested student who does not wish to learn and should, therefore, be promptly removed from this educational establishment. Evidence against R., Levi, includes…”_

A neatly formatted list began on the line directly beneath this paragraph. Each bullet aligned with the next, with all of them indented by approximately one and a half inches. The citations ‘R., Levi’ (who, by all logical accounts, had to be the Levi) were numerous and tedious to read. However, Eren noted that there were a few interesting bullet points. “Beating another student with boot for insulting companion” was one of the ones which happened to amuse him; “Instructing concerned staff member to ‘Eat his own shit’ when confronted about spoiled food in lunch” was another.

At the end of this list, following another page break, there was one final block of text. It began:

_“It is strongly suggested that, for the safety of both students and teachers, R., Levi be removed from school and placed in a psychiatric hospital. Due to the dismal lack of response received from the parents, family, and extended family of R., Levi, it is further proposed that he be placed in the psychiatric hospital on a permanent basis OR until he is a legal adult (18 years old). Please consider this evidence and proposal and respond to this letter as soon as possible.”_

The word ‘sincerely’ could be made out beneath this, though the name of the sender could not be identified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **C'est ne pas grave.** It's no problem.
> 
>  **Le travail élonge de nous trois grand maux: l’ennui, le vice et le besoin.** Work rids us of three great evils: boredom, vice, and need. (A quote by Voltaire)
> 
>  **C'est vraiment honteux.** It's a total disgrace.
> 
> [All other phrases are followed directly by their translations.]


	7. Chapter 7

The Doubloon was a bustling if not shady bar near the high school campus, in which dim ceiling lights illuminated a dark room with walls of faux mahogany. The cigarette smoke which wafted through the air like fog in a valley caught the light, casting shadows throughout the enclosure. A pianist in the corner cranked out tune after tune—either by request or of his own accord—upon a raspy old upright piano. At the time, the tune happened to be “Le bon roi Dagobert” and, amidst the drunken revelry, sat two recurrent customers to the bar—Levi and Hanji.

Levi was, at the time at which this particular narrative begins, drunk. In fact, he was drunker than drunk. He was so goddamn drunk that he was singing along with the familiar French tune as he stomached glass after glass of cheap wine. He happened to be about two lines behind the music, though the rowdy bustle which surrounded him drowned out these inebriated antics.

Hanji, erstwhile, glared at her companion with a look of disapproving frustration. She stirred her coffee and sighed, though she made no comment.

“So, Hanji… Hanji! Hanji, ma copine, you’ve got to hear this story, eh…” continued the hammered janitor.

“Levi,” sighed Hanji, “If this is about cleaning the supply room, I don’t want to hear it. You’ve told that story fifteen times, now. Fifteen times in a row, Levi…”

“Nah! It’s not about that. It’s—” Levi paused at this point. He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and leapt from his seat, sending his chair skidding into the unoccupied table behind him. “No, what…? Oh… Hey…” Having managed to stammer this much, the young man staggered to the bar. He produced from his pocket his last five dollars and ordered as much wine as his meagre payment could afford. In return, he received two small glasses.

He promptly attempted to down these glasses, though most of it ended up spilling onto his shirt. A stream of incoherent nonsense followed the completion of these beverages. “ _Merci, monsieur_. My best thanks and apologies for your grandmother’s passing.” Then, he stumbled back to his table, dropped into his seat across from Hanji, and began to spew forth impossibly rushed and unintelligible French.

After about a minute and a half of indiscernible, mangled French, Levi slipped into a state of profound confusion. His general lack of response and merciful silence was enough of a cue for Hanji to drag him from the bar by his wrist and return him to the campus’ run-down groundskeeper’s house in which he resided.

 

* * *

 

Levi later woke to the sound of knuckles rapping against the flimsy wooden door to his abode. Though this noise was faint, it sounded to him as if someone was crushing cars directly in front of him. He groaned, rolled out of bed, and threw on a black bathrobe to hide his soiled dress shirt.

“Shut up!” he responded as another round of knocking assaulted his ears. “I’m coming! _Putain de merde!_ Hold on!” Having said this, he threw open the wooden portal to reveal a girl—fairly tall (though everyone was tall to Levi) with straight black hair and a critical gaze. A ratty red scarf was wrapped about her neck and her arms folded across her chest. _“Qui es-tu?”_

“Are you Levi?” the girl responded to Levi’s inquiry with her own question, causing a great deal of confusion for the hungover janitor.

 _“Qui es-tu?”_ repeated Levi after a fair bit of thought.

“I’m Mikasa Ackerman,” the girl responded briskly, “I’m of friend of Eren Jaeger’s… Actually, I’m his sister, though people normally forget that…”

“Eh?” grumbled Levi, “That’s nice. _C’est bon_. But I don’t feel like talking today, so if you could maybe come back tomorrow or something…”

Mikasa’s response to this statement was a momentary judgemental glare and a simple, “That sounds good. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

 _“Merci,”_ mumbled Levi as he slammed the door shut and retreated back to his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Putain de merde!** Fucking shit!  
>  **Qui es-tu?** Who're you?


	8. Chapter 8

Eren found himself sitting in front of the school’s frog pond, alongside Mikasa, being lectured about how she believed that Levi was a poor match for him and how this would only end badly. Now, of course, he found himself sitting at this specific spot at that specific moment only because Mikasa punched him on the shoulder.

“Well,” she growled, “I want an answer. Why the fuck do you think this is a good idea?”

“Think what is a good idea?” Eren snapped back without hesitation. As per usual, he’d been ignoring the relatively sound advice of his adoptive sister. (He’d taught himself to ignore most of Mikasa’s warnings; though a large proportion of these cautionings were legitimate, sound advice.)

“Helping a head janitor who’s known to be under legal drinking age but is also known for frequenting the bar down the street,” Mikasa explained tersely, her brows furrowing slightly as she spoke. “He’s twenty, you know. He’s perfectly capable of handling his own duties. But, of course, that’s only when he’s not drunk.”

“Where the hell did you get that idea!?” shouted Eren, leaping suddenly to his feet.

“Calm down, Eren. I’ve done some looking into the whole issue and, from what I’ve found, this guy’s a pretty unsavoury character…” At this point, Mikasa paused. A faint hint of a confident smirk flashed across her face, though it never fully appeared. “And, if my insight is correct, I want to say Levi was expelled from his former middle school for misconduct.”

“He—” Eren stopped himself as he recalled the letter he’d previously read. He slowly sat back down and chewed thoughtfully on his lip. “Yeah… He was…”

“Exactly,” Mikasa shrugged. She sighed, looked at Eren, and punched him in the shoulder again. “And don’t chew your lip. You’ll break the skin, it’ll start bleeding, and then you’ll go off whining to Armin. Then Armin will send you to me and I don’t feel like putting up with your shit today.”

“Ugh,” responded Eren. “Fine. So, what? Are you going to ban me from seeing this guy or something?”

“Not really.” Mikasa rose to her feet and pulled her scarf down a bit. “Just think about it.” Having said this, it seemed to Eren that she decided that her point had been made. For, at this point, she casually wandered off, leaving him to stew in his own confusion.

 

* * *

_“Saint Dymphna”_

The letters were emblazoned upon a brochure in golden, sans-serif font. They hovered above a picture of what could only be comparable to a French castle which is set atop a lush, green hill and surrounded by gorgeous landscaping. Scribbled at the bottom of the pamphlet’s cover was a simple statement— _“R., Levi”._

This particular brochure opened outwards to reveal a three-panel informational regarding some sort of hospital for juvenile delinquents. Even Eren could tell that the claims in the book were beyond sugar coated—they were injected, coated, boiled in, and then recoated with the sweetest bullshit possible.

Eren, thus, dismissed these claims. In fact, he grew bored and dismissed the entire pamphlet. He stuffed back into the envelope and pulled forth a different document. This one—a yellowed piece of notebook paper—was folded into a meticulously perfect rectangle and penned in angular print. The date which prefaced the exposition was impossibly smudged, but, nonetheless, it read:

_“Day five.”_

_“The people in this shithole are as entertaining as dead flies. The food is terrible. It tastes like ash and piss mixed with flower and sculpted into the shape of lumpy hamburger patties.”_

Beneath this short diary entry was a quick sketch of what appeared to be a glorified jail cell. Arrows jutted from the image, each leading to indiscernible French labels. And, below this sketch, was a simple statement:

_“Estimated time to escape—3”_

Three what? though Eren. Three days? Years?

He turned the page over and searched frantically for an answer. He held it to the light and scoured the aged surface for any signs of hidden ink, though he found none. Thus, he resignedly sighed and set the note aside—into the personal safe provided by the school—and let the memory of it drift into the back of his inattentive mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Levi. No French. Woo.  
> Also, sorry for the short updates as of late.


	9. Chapter 9

Around midnight, Eren Jaeger found himself wandering aimlessly about the campus. His forest green sweatshirt protected him from the crisp autumn breeze and his jeans kept him from scratching his legs as he stumbled through the jagged underbrush.

Simply put, Eren couldn’t go to sleep. Now, such an occurrence (including the illegal wandering about in the dense brush) was not uncommon. What was uncommon was that, on this particular night, Eren happened to be following a sound. He was following two sounds, actually. One was the distinctive, harmonious whine of a violin; the other was the sound of quiet humming. Both melodic instances merged to form a distinct, melancholy song.

Crrk. Eren staggered over a rotted-out, fallen tree branch (snapping it in half in the process). He tumbled inelegantly down a steep, rocky incline—losing his favourite sweatshirt in the process, he might add—prior to coming to an abrupt landing on a patch of dried grass. “Fuck,” he murmured to no one in particular as he stumbled to his feet and brushed the accumulated dirt and sand from his body.

“Fuck!” he repeated as he stormed onwards.

_“Et si un jour la vie t'arrache à moi_   
_Si tu meures que tu sois loin de moi_   
_Peu m'importe si tu m'aimes_   
_Car moi je mourrai aussi…”_

The foreign words drifted through the air, sung in a cold, mid-pitch voice. Eren shoved his way through a tangle of foliage and into a secluded clearing covered by long-dead grass and protected by the shade of a lopsided weeping willow. And it was in the midst of this lifeless field of jagged, yellowed twigs that a familiar figure stood—violin in hand and outdated travel cloak wrapped about his thin frame. His lips were barely parted, yet the words flowed freely from them.

_“Et nous aurons pour nous l’éternité…”_

Both bow and voice quivered. Levi shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

_“Dans le bleu de tout l’immensité_   
_Dans le ciel plus de problèmes_   
_Mon amour crois-tu qu’on s’aime…”_

The bow’s movement slowed. The note was drawn out of what seemed like an eternity. One long, wavering, perfect note pierced the air. Then, there came the final words.

_“Dieu rénuit ceux qui s’aiment.”_

At this point, Eren came to the conclusion that he probably wasn’t supposed to be watching. He took a haphazard step back and, as luck would have it, brought his foot down on a twig. Its quiet snap echoed in Eren’s mind like a gunshot.

“Eh?” Levi grumbled, turning towards the spot where Eren had hidden. “I know you’re there… _Montre-toi…_ ” He spoke these words calmly as he approached. Each footstep crashed through the dry, dead grass. His thin, grey eyes were locked on Eren. _“Le voilà.”_ Having said this, Levi reached forwards and gripped the front of Eren’s shirt. He pulled him from where he had been, hidden in the bushes, and into the light of the full moon. His brows furrowed as he studied the teen and, after a few moments, he released his iron grip. “It’s only you…”

“Hey!” Eren dejectedly snapped in response.

“What? _C’est vrai,_ ” shrugged Levi. “It’s not like I insulted your family or anything. _Mon Dieu!_ Calm the hell down.”

Eren paused. He considered this comment and pondered the reason for his actions. (Could it be that he had, somewhere within him, a sense of importance? Not of overall importance, but of importance to a certain individual—to Levi? No! No, he reminded himself. Of course not! That was ridiculous.) “I wasn’t angry,” he lied.

“Mhm. Right,” replied Levi, his arms crossed across his chest. “I’m sure. So… Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Eren shrugged. “And why are you here?”

“The same reason. _Pourquoi?”_

Eren sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Curious…” he mumbled as he scuffed the toe of his sneaker against a nearby rock. His eyes avoided meeting Levi’s gaze; he had no intent to get into deeper shit than he was already in. “… Bored…”

 _“C’est raisonnnable,”_ Levi replied as he wandered over to the violin case in the centre of the clearing. “I won’t report you, you know,” he continued, placing the instrument carefully back into its container. “So you can stop acting like you’ve got a pole up your ass.”

“Sorry,” was Eren’s instinctual response. “So… What were you playing?”

“ _L’hymne à l’amour._ It’s a French song… obviously…” The man turned towards Eren and sighed in what may or may not have been a reluctant manner. He raised a thin, black brow. “Would you like to hear the whole thing?” His fingers played at the rusty clasps which held his instrument’s case closed.

Eren took a moment to answer this question. (Did he really want to hear the song? To be honest, yes but the instrument was already away at this point. And, while Levi could easily pull it from its case, it seemed as though that would be an unnecessary hassle for him. It was a mere want, after all; it wasn’t something he absolutely needed.) Eventually, he returned with a quiet, “No thanks…”

“Hm… _Ouais_.” Levi’s response was accompanied by a visual study of the brunet teen. His brow lowered and his thin lips returned to their usual, neutral frown. “Would you like for me to show you back to your room? _C’est dangereux ici._ ”

“As I’ve figured out,” grumbled Eren. “Whatever… I don’t think I’ll die on the way back without you, but if you want to…”

“I’ll show you a shorter way out of here, assuming you came from the cliffs,” the man sighed and beckoned to the teen with a wave of his hand. ‘Follow’. The word was never said, yet the implication was clear.

 _“Là-bas,”_ murmured the man as he finally exited the clearing. His finger was directed towards the point in question—a winding, overgrown dirt path which gently wound its way to the top of the cliff from which Eren had presumably fallen. “That path will lead you back to the rear courtyard. I assume you can find your way back from there.”

“Yes sir,” muttered Eren, “Thank you.”

 _“De rien…”_ Moments after saying this, Levi corrected himself. “You’re welcome.” He gave Eren a gentle shove towards the path and a hint of a smirk appeared on his face. “Go.”

Eren nodded and suppressed the urge to smile in reply as he followed the route he’d been given.

 

* * *

 

On this particular day, the paper which Eren pulled from the envelope was neither a letter nor a journal entry.

Rather, it was a photo—a faded image with bent corners and fingerprint smudges. Its colours were washed out by a combination of age and use, though the image itself was fairly recognisable. A young girl—perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old—with reddish-blonde hair sat on a fallen tree. Across her pale face was spread a genuine smile.

Another, more familiar figure sat alongside the photographed girl. This particular figure was quite obviously Levi—as could be evidenced by the distinctive grey eyes and thin brows. His legs were crossed in front of him, and—strangely enough—he was smiling. (Not one of those shitty little ‘oh, okay, whatever’ smiles, but an actual, joyful smile.) And not only was he smiling; but, it was quite obvious that he was laughing.

Eren’s brows furrowed in inquisitive concern as this realisation hit him. He chewed his lip thoughtfully and flipped the image over and—to his surprise—he found a short, enigmatic message. “PETRA.” A single word, scrawled sloppily in all capital letters across the back of the image in faded pen. (Perhaps, considered Eren, it was the girl’s name?)

“Hm…” After one final, cursory glance at the photo, Eren stowed it away in his safe, alongside the other documents. He shut the door, ensured it was locked, and retreated to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Montre-toi!** Show yourself!  
>  **Le voilà.** There!  
>  **C'est vrai.** It's true.  
>  **Mon Dieu!** My God!  
>  **Pourquoi?** Why?  
>  **C'est raisonnable.** It's reasonable./That's reasonable.  
>  **Ouais.** Yeah/Yup  
>  **C'est dangereux ici.** It is dangerous here.  
>  **Là-bas!** Over there./There.  
>  **De rien.** You're welcome.
> 
>  **L'hymne à l'amour** is a song tied to French singer Edith Piaf. The lyrics in both French and English can be found [**here**](http://lyricstranslate.com/en/hymne-l039amour-hymne-lamour.html) and a video of the song (as sung by Piaf) can be found on YouTube, via [**this link**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTGmbA40ZQ).


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **!!! There's some violence at the beginning of this chapter and mentions of blood. I don't really think this one blurb is enough to warrant a content warning, though... If it needs one, tell me. Otherwise, I'll consider this little disclaimer to be enough. !!!**

_Four figures crouched beneath a windowsill, huddled close to one another and covered by grey tarp. They kept close watch on the scene which was visible through the trembling glass of the window above them. Two of them had an ear pressed to the house’s flimsy wooden siding._

_“Yes… That’s enough from you,” coos an umbral figure. “Enough.”_

_A clap of thunder. A flash of lightning. Metal glinted in the brief electrical illumination._

_The figure sprawled out on the floor twitched briefly. Its subsequent scream was muffled by the sound of inhaled blood gurgling in its throat. It shuddered one final time and died._

_The umbral form standing above this dead form let forth a cold, calculated cackle. It motioned briefly for the awaiting quartet to enter and began raiding the home alongside them. “Take anything that looks worth it!”_

_Four sets of shadowy hands reached forth. Indistinct, shady fingers curled around various objects. Here, a cup was taken. There, a plate was stolen. So on and so forth._

_Another rumble of thunder. The criminals concluded that the income from their spree would be sufficient and departed as swiftly and silently as they had entered. Lightning illuminated the room one last time—made visible the face of a young woman with blood smeared across her face and a knife jutting from her chest._

_And it was this point, in the middle of his retreat, that the last criminal—the smallest of the lot—stopped. He stared at the face, frowned, and glanced at his sack of treasures._

_After kneeling beside the woman, he reached forward and closed her eyes. He removed the knife from her chest and folded her cold, pale hands across it so that they rested, clasped together, over the fatal wound. “Reposez en paix.”_

_“C’mon, Levi!” The criminal turned to meet the voice of his companion, his brows shooting upwards._

_“Yes, sir,” he sighed as he picked up his bag and tossed it over his shoulder. “Immédiatement…”_

 

* * *

 

 _“Putain de merde!”_ breathed Levi as he woke from his daydreaming and removed himself from the unpleasant realm of his memory.

“Are you okay over there?” The sound of Eren’s voice brought what little bit of Levi hadn’t fully returned from the realm of disconnect back into the realm of reality.

“Hm?” responded the man. (He momentarily pondered the reason for Eren’s presence within earshot, though he quickly recalled that today was one of the teen’s work days. This revelation was accompanied by a sigh.) “ _Ouais_. Yeah. Were you saying something?”

“M’kay.” Eren was never one to be too prying; and, as per usual, he accepted the fact without further inquiry. He did, however, continue to pursue some casual conversation. “And I was just kind of rambling about my past. It’s a load of uninteresting shit.” The teen sighed and drove his shovel into the plot of land to which he had been assigned. He heaved a good deal of earth from its place and dropped it atop the growing pile to his left.

“ _Ça suffit!_ You’re good.” Levi grumbled as he haphazardly picked up the sapling he was supposed to be transplanting and dropped it into the hole which had been created. He continued his work—shoving and packing the dislocated earth around the small plant’s base—while he spoke. “And I don’t really care. I’m a janitor. I’ve heard far worse shit than a few personal problems.”

“No… I was just talking to hear myself talk. At least, that’s what Armin would say I was doing,” responded Eren. “You know Armin?”

“Not personally. I know who you’re talking about, though. The smart blond kid you’re always hanging out with, right? That’s Armin, non?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” At this point, Eren risked a glance at his watch.

“Tired already?” Levi jested (although his straight face seemed to falsely indicate otherwise). “ _Bordel de merde!_ You eager to go on a hot date or something?”

“I…” Eren frowned and averted his gaze. Levi could easily see his rapidly rising blush. “No… I just… I was going to have lunch with Armin and Mikasa and then maybe come back?”

Levi smirked and rolled his eyes. _“Bof_. I don’t care. Go on. You’re dismissed for the day. _Va te faire foutre!”_

“What?”

“ _Va te faire foutre_ ,” Levi sighed, “Don’t repeat it to Hanji. Now, go! Before I change my mind!”

“Yes sir,” Eren mumbled prior to rather ungracefully departing from Levi’s company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Immédiatement.** Immediately  
>  **Putain de merde!** Fucking hell!/Holy shit! (roughly)  
>  **Ça suffit!** That's enough!  
>  **Bof.** Meh.  
>  **Va te faire foutre!** Fuck off!/Go get fucked!
> 
> Sorry for the short chapter. I promise that there's a reason.


	11. Chapter 11

Clop! Levi’s well-placed shot sent the dulled, beaten-up cue ball skidding across the rough felt of an old pool table. The spherical, off-white ceramic object hit the triangular arrangement of eight billiard balls perfectly. At the same time, the man sighed and straightened his idiotic cravat. He watched as one of the solid balls rolled into the upper right pocket and smirked. Then, he took his next turn. He aligned himself with the cue ball, lined up his shot, and drew back the cue. He practiced his strike once or twice in the air immediately surrounding the ball.

“You’ve got a soft spot for him, don’t you, Levi? For Eren?”

The voice of Hanji—Levi’s seemingly constant companion—caused a good deal of shock to the man at which the statement was directed. His heart skipped a beat at the mention of the name. In one disconnected move, he slammed the heavily chalked tip of his pool cue into the fragile felt of the table. It skidded across the surface, ripping away a straight line of exposed slate about two inches long. “ _Quoi?_ ” the man breathed.

“Eren,” Hanji repeated, “You seem to have a bit of a soft spot for him. _Un petit faible_.”

Levi frowned. He stepped away from the table to allow Hanji to take her turn. At the same time, he absentmindedly picked up the chalk and began to apply an undeniably copious amount of the substance to the tip of his cue. “No,” he attempted to answer firmly, though the slight pause preceding his answer was enough to indicate otherwise. “That’s a lie.”

“Really?” Hanji snickered as she took a haphazard shot at the striped green ball. “Because I sense otherwise. _Partarge_?”

“ _Non_ ,” shrugged Levi, his eyes fixated upon the phenomenon of crumbling chalk.

 _“S’il te plaît?”_ implored Hanji.

“ _Non_.” Having repeated his reply, Levi stepped forward to take his turn. He aimed the cue ball at the solid green ball which lay about a foot away. He chewed his lip thoughtfully and made his move. The ball weaved slightly as it traversed the uneven surface, though it hit its target exactly as was intended. Without any prior fanfare, the solid green ball sank into the depths of the coin-operate table. It clopped about inside the machine for a minute or so prior to being regurgitated into the glass-protected ball display shelf beside the coin slot.

“So, then, what is he?”

Levi frowned and raised a thin, black brow. He took another shot, pocketed the solid red ball with the utmost ease, and sighed. Plunk. He rammed the overly chalked tip of his cue against the grey tile floor of the bar and folded his hands across the wider base of the tool.

(He had to answer the question carefully. Hanji was undoubtedly interested in the topic for a reason and, with no idea of that particular reason, he had no real idea of if any answer could be used against him. And, of course, there was the issue of legality. He could get into major trouble for saying even the most well-meaning of things if someone overhearing the conversation deemed such commentary to be paedophilic in nature.)

“I— Eren’s a friend, I suppose,” he eventually murmured. _“Un comarade.”_

“Mhm.” The smirk on Hanji’s face grew wider (much to Levi’s disconcertment). She nodded skeptically. “Whatever you say, Levi.”

 _“C’est vrai!”_ he protested. “He’s a friend! And we’re playing pool, not twenty goddamn questions!”

Hanji laughed at this rebuttal, though she seemed to agree to some degree, as she did stop asking questions regarding Eren. “Fine!” Here, she threw her hands in the air  in a show of faux defeat. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know it bothered you so much!”

“Yes, well, now you know,” grumbled Levi as he failed to pocket the solid blue ball.

 

* * *

 

Shortly after returning from his and Hanji’s game of pool at the nearby bar, Levi just so happened to run into an unusual scene.

Five boys—freshmen—were crowded around something. No! As Levi approached it became clear that it was someone. A blond, to be exact, who Levi happened to recognise as one of Eren’s usual tagalongs. A steady stream of blood flowed from his right nostril and a black, swollen bruise was forming around his left eye. He back was pressed against the red brick wall of the old office building and his feet hovered about a foot off the ground.

“Hey!” Levi’s voice prompted the five surrounding teens to turn about. Ten eyes fell upon the glowering janitor and ten legs began to propel the suspects as far away from the scene as possible.

Levi seemed to dismiss this, however. For, as soon as the blond came crashing to the ground, his attentions turned towards tending to the teen. He knelt alongside him and offered him his hand. “You okay there, kid?”

“I—Yeah… I suppose so,” mumbled the blond.

“Hm,” Levi replied with a shrug as he helped the teen to his feet. “Well, then, come on with me. I’ll get you patched up a bit. Sound good?” He attempted to offer a reassuring smile, though he felt as though it came across as more of a creepy excuse for a half-assed smirk.

“Yeah,” the boy responded in spite of Levi’s possibly failed attempt at reassurance. “Your name’s Levi, right?”

“Mhm. How’d you know that?”

“I’m Armin, one of Eren’s friends. He tends to talk a lot about you. From what I can tell, he kind of fancies you.”

Levi paused for a moment. He filed this information away in the back of his mind for the time being and nodded dismissively. “Okay, then. Well, follow me.” With this, he began to escort the blond to the rundown groundskeeper’s house which he called home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Un petit faible** A soft spot.  
>  **Quoi?** What?  
>  **Partarge** Share.  
>  **S'il te plaît?** Please?  
>  **C'est vrai!** It's true!


	12. Chapter 12

“So… You’re one of Eren’s friends?” inquired Levi as he perused the multitude of bottles and boxes stacked neatly upon his small pantry’s uppermost supply shelf.

“Yeah…” Armin replied nervously.

“Hm.” Levi’s thin grey eyes settled on a dusty grey-tinted bottle. He pulled it from its spot, inspected the label, and shrugged. “And you’re also also affiliated with Jean?” he continued as he wet the gauze he’d wrapped about a sizeable gash across the back of the blond’s left hand with the contents of the greyish container.

“I’m his boyfriend,” Armin shrugged, wincing slightly as the liquid soaked through the fabric and came in contact with his wound. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Oui. Of course it’s safe,” Levi grumbled, slightly offended that such an inquiry would even be brought up. He was helping the kid, after all… “So… If you and Jean are so goddamn happy together, is there any reason for Eren hating the guy so much?”

“What do you—?” Armin began to reply, though his quickly recovered the conversation. “Yeah, it’s more an ego thing. Eren’s never gotten along with Jean and Jean’s never gotten along with Eren. It’s a perpetual state of mutual hatred.”

To this, Levi couldn’t help but snicker. “Obviously. So…” At this point, the man’s gaze drifted towards the ground. He wandered over to the cabinet once more and placed the bottle back where he’d retrieved it from. Then, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, he mumbled, “Eren’s… Single, then?”

“You’ll have to get through Mikasa,” Armin shrugged, “But, simply put, yes. He’s available.”

“Hm,” breathed Levi. “I’ll keep that in mind…” At this point, he finally turned back towards Armin. He made another (and, once again, failed in his opinion) attempt at a reassuring smile. “You’re fine to go. If you happen to run into Eren, tell him I’m looking for him.”

For a moment, a look of what Levi presumed to be discomfort flashed across the teen’s face, though it was quickly hidden beneath a hesitant half-smile. “I’ll be sure to do that. Thank you, Mister Levi.”

“Just call me Levi,” the man mumbled as he watched the blond retreat from his home.

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes after Armin departed from Levi’s home there came from the front door the sound of knuckles rapping against wood. The horrid tune of an off-key doorbell echoed throughout the home, only to be near-immediately followed by more knocking.

“Fuck! Dammit! _Arrête_! I’m coming!” Levi responded exasperatedly as he staggered from his cramped bedroom and to the front door. “There! I’m here!” He unbolted his door’s lock and opened it by pushing it outwards. “Fais attention! Watch out!” he called in haphazard warning.

“Shit!” exclaimed a familiar voice. “What was that for!?”

“Eren?” Levi mumbled. “I didn’t expect you to show up so soon. I thought you were Hanji.”

“And that’s an excuse!?” mumbled the teen as he rubbed away bits of chipped off door paint from his knuckles.

“Not really,” shrugged the man, absentmindedly playing with his cravat.

Eren, meanwhile, responded with a disgruntled sigh. “So what exactly did you call me here for?” he eventually grunted.

“I…” Here, Levi paused. He chewed his lip thoughtfully and took a moment to think. Once again, he was trapped between looking too casual and coming across as creepishly serious. No! There was never black nor white. Nothing was as simple as it looked; he’d learned that long ago. There was a grey area somewhere—a perfect, happy medium between the asinine and the possibly paedophilic.

“You what?” grumbled Eren, crossing his arms across his chest and raising a thick brown brow in expectant inquisition.

Levi retorted with a confused sigh prior to making a final, atypically impulsive decision. “You’re not dating anyone, are you?” were the words which were eventually forced out into the open.

Eren, in turn, replied with a sceptical frown. His lips thinned slightly and his posture became slightly less rigid. His voice, however, maintained its usual, harsh bite. “No. And I assume you’re not dating, either? I mean, you could be dating Ha—”

“I’m not dating Hanji,” Levi swiftly interjected. “That’s not the point anyhow. The point is… Would you…” He cleared his throat and stared at a cockroach which writhed wildly about on his floor. Unconsciously, he stepped forwards a bit. A quiet crunch echoed in his mind as his boot came down upon the twitching insect. (He wasn’t used to emotional situations like this…) “ _Je t’aime,_ I guess… I don’t know.”

Eren’s frown became more pronouncedly sceptical. He let forth a hesitant laugh. “You’re not serious, are you? I mean… Isn’t this technically illegal?”

Levi shrugged. “It’s only five years, _non_?”

“Yeah,” the teen responded as he rubbed the back of his neck. “And… Well… I guess I kind of like you, too? Maybe?”

“Maybe?” Levi retorted in faux anger, waving his hands idiotically in the air to emphasise his insincere point. “Just maybe?”

“Well,” Eren shrugged, “If it works out it won’t be a ‘maybe’...” This statement was punctuated by an odd sight—a smile. A tight-lipped, uncertain, grin, but still genuine smile.

And, at least as far as Levi knew, a smile found its way onto his usually passive facial features, as well. That wasn’t the main issue, though. The main issue was that somehow—by some stroke of crazy luck—it had worked. It worked, and all he had to do was make sure it kept working.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Arrête!_ Stop!  
>  _Je t'aime._ I love you. (Levi's not very original, nor am I.)


	13. Chapter 13

“You did what!?”

Eren found himself being swept off his feet by the person grabbing the front of his shirt and rammed against a brick wall. A pair of fiery brown eyes glared at him. “I—It’s not that big of a deal, Mikasa!” protested the teen, waving his hands in the air to try to prove some sort of a point. “Honestly! You act like I’m going to go to jail for this!”

“You won’t,” Mikasa growled, “But he will.”

“Wait… What?” Eren’s dazed response was met by his feet touching the ground as Mikasa released her grip on his shirt.

“This is legal paedophilia, Eren,” Mikasa sighed, running her long fingers through her thick black hair. “And, honestly, it’s a stupid idea. Why can’t the asshole just get himself a girlfriend or boyfriend within his own age group?”

“I don’t know!” Eren defensively snapped. “Maybe there just aren’t that many people around here. I don’t fucking know! He seems like a nice enough guy!”

“Really? Because I was doing some research, and…” Having said this, Mikasa departed momentarily.

 

* * *

 

Levi sighed and dropped into his favourite armchair with a contented sigh. Everything had fallen into place. Everything was just right. Everything was going right for once…

Whoosh. A stray breeze managed to throw open the unlatched front window. It sent papers flying through the air, scattering them like food crumbs from the mouth of the world’s messiest eater.

“Fuck,” grumbled Levi as he stumbled to his feet and began to reorganise his papers. (Old notes went into that file. Financial papers were to be stored in this binder. And so on.) Eventually, having completely restored his home to its proper level of organisation, he went to relax in his armchair once more. As he did so, however, something hit him. Literally.

A page of paper—one which had formerly been buried beneath mounds of problematic unfiled papers—was blown from its spot atop his desk. It hit him squarely in the face, prompting him to let forth a long stream of French profanities prior to actually opening the paper.

Across the top of the page, in neatly, evenly spaced sans-serif font, was a simple headline—Robbery and Homicide Suspects still at Large. Beneath this text, was a massive wall of text—a looming reminder of his past. He sighed and prepared to fold the paper and return it to its spot, only to find his attentions caught by the name of the victim—Carla Jäger.

Jäger… Jaeger… He’d heard that name before. He knew it. He…

No. If that girl—Mikasa—had been as serious about protecting Eren as she seemed to have been the day she arrived at Levi’s house, then this fact was likely the next thing that would be revealed the Eren. But… No. Surely, this was a fluke. Jaeger was a common name, right?

Levi threw the paper aside and made his way to the school library. He politely asked one student to relinquish their control of the computer. They refused; he repeated himself. Once again, the teen refused, as which point Levi promptly shoved him from his seat and began to frantically scour the internet for answers.

He searched every article possible, combing through countless family history sites in the process, for an indeterminate amount of time. Why measure time, after all? This wasn’t about how much time he was wasting. This was about how he’d finally managed to get something done right once only for it to explode in his face. This was about how he could have possibly managed to overlook such a massive pitfall.

 

* * *

 

“What?” Eren mumbled as he stumbled backwards, away from Mikasa. “You’re shitting me, right?”

Mikasa remained as austere as ever. A ghost of a smirk seemed to attempt to cross her face, though it ultimately failed to do so.

“Right!?” Eren repeated, his voice louder than before. “You’re joking?”

“No,” Mikasa responded simply.

“But…” Eren frowned. He chewed on his lip and tried to process everything.

He’d always had a black-and-white view of the world. The jerks that bullied Armin were assholes—the bad guys, per say. The people like Armin and Mikasa, erstwhile, were the good guys. Good guys got along with at least a few people and did what they were meant to do without too much of a fuss. They were honest and helpful people, much like he’d believed Levi was to that point.

Yet, as he stood staring at the news article bearing both his mother’s name and the name of the man he’d just befriended, he found himself starting to see a grey area. He stared down the narrow alley spanning black and white and, for a brief moment, he saw a light at the end of the dark road. As quickly as it had appeared, however, it disappeared. Levi shifted back into the darker category—he fell into line with the criminals and murderers Eren had always abhorred.

“So, Eren, you having any second thoughts?” Mikasa inquired, her voice breaking Eren’s pensive trance.

Eren frowned and turned his gaze towards the familiar voice. He sighed, continued to chew his lip for a moment or two, then, after what felt like forever, he responded, “Yes.”

“Good,” Mikasa responded, having apparently deemed her daily debt to Eren’s well being paid. “Good night.” With this said, she turned abruptly and wandered off, leaving Eren to stew in his own confusion—alone, in his dormitory (Armin was staying in Jean’s dorm at the time).

 

* * *

 

Around the time he usually would have been eating dinner, Levi found himself, instead, banging frantically on a dormitory room door. “Eren?” he inquired, his ear pressed to the door, “Eren, you little shit! Open the door! _Ouvre la porte!_ Eren!”

No response came.

He continued for another minute or so. “Dammit, Eren!”

Again, no response.

He sighed. He leaned his back against the door, folded his arms across his chest, and rolled his eyes. “I probably should have seen this coming,” he mumbled. “Good night, you little shit.” Having said this, he stood beside the door for an extra minute, though the response he was looking for never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so being completely honest here: this wasn't supposed to be this long. this was a mild distraction prior to me finishing my already-way-too-long homestuck fic, steelbent, so..... sorry. i'm kind of wrapping this up now... not yet. but soon. like, next chapter soon. or maybe the chapter after that.


	14. Five Years Later

Atop an old, eroding hill was perched a vast plot of land—a graveyard. The oldest graveyard in the area, in fact. Its faded stone markers were cluttered about and clumped together like the contents of an overstocked antique shop and the fountain at its centre had long since ceased to function properly. Snow covered the stones and pathways and a thin layer of ice blanketed some of the older monuments.

Near the northeastern corner, there was a small space devoted to cremated bodies of poorer families and individuals. The markers were plain, formal white rectangles—somewhat akin to military markers, yet without the strict arrangement. It was here that a man—a young man, to be more specific—had garnered a reputation for frequenting. This man had, as far as locals were concerned, begun to appear five years prior, about halfway through the academic year of the community’s prided boarding school. He showed up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to place flowers on each of the forgotten or decrepit graves and pull weeds.

And, despite the fact that this particular Friday happened to be Christmas Day, the man lived up to his reputation. He showed up around noon with countless flowers—some in hand, others in a plain wagon which he pulled behind him—and began making his rounds.

He placed flowers before every grave which seemed to no longer receive any. By the gravestone topped by a long-decapitated stone angel. Atop the eroding lute held in the hands of a ruined marble angel; and on every stone which was tended to by a poorer family, he also placed a flower.

In this manner, he continued for a good three hours. He wound his way in and out of the narrow alleys between oversized headstones and mausoleums, until he found himself standing in the centre of the aforementioned cremation area. He loomed above a young man with messy brown hair and his narrow grey eyes managed to narrow even more so than usual.

“Hey,” the older of the two men—who, at this point, held a single bouquet of red carnations—grumbled.

The younger—the brunet kneeling before one of the more battered of the modern headstones—sighed. Without turning to face the man he was addressing, he rose to his feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled prior to turning and departing. “I was just visiting…” Again, he sighed. Again, without looking, he spoke, “Merry Christmas, sir.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too, Eren…”

The man’s response prompted the brunet to pause and turn. “Levi?” he inquired.

“Hm. I suppose so,” the eldest responded with a shrug.

“What are you doing here?”

Again, the eldest—Levi—shrugged. “I figured you’d find your way here eventually.”

“Yeah, and?” Eren replied testily.

“I was hoping to apologise,” Levi responded, averting his gaze as he spoke.

“So, what? You’ve been sticking floral arrangements on the graves of people you don’t know to make up for your crimes?” Eren spat bitterly. “Because, as far as I can tell, most people don’t even care.”

“I suppose I do.”

“You’re not even related to these people!”

“But someone is,” Levi pointed out. “Now, go. I’ve apologised and bothered you enough. Merry Christmas.”

Eren frowned and chewed his lip. He made to leave yet, as he departed, he grabbed the lapel of the man’s overcoat. He pulled him forward in an unexpected show of strength and positioned him so that their lips met. Then, before Levi could so much as process this event, he released him. He shoved him gently away and offered a hesitant smirk. “Same to you, Levi.”

“I—” Levi began.

“I’ll be waiting for you on campus,” Eren interjected with a wide grin and a wink.

“ _Oui_ ,” was Levi’s simple response. “And, do tell me, how are you going to get onto the campus? It’s locked down for the holidays.”

“I know a guy,” Eren retorted with a hint of sly intuition. “Short, moody, French. You seen him around?”

For the first time in a long while, Levi found himself smiling. “ _Non_. I don’t happen to know the guy. I can help you find him, though.”

“Close enough.” With this said, Eren sighed and caught up with the somewhat enigmatic figure. He shoved his hands into his pockets and made sure his bag was securely hung over his shoulder before following further.

At the same time, Levi couldn’t help but smile. Perhaps—by some strange twist of fate—this was what was meant to be; perhaps it wasn’t. It didn’t matter, now. All that mattered at this point was that, for that moment, he and Eren had finally managed to rekindle a former friendship and that—maybe, if he played his cards right—it could turn into something more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> abrupt ending, i guess? sorry. but thanks for the support throughout the writing of this stupid thing! i really appreciate it!
> 
> [DISCLAIMER (added 21/12/13):] If my current or future (possible) French teachers find this, it wasn't me. Don't practice your French by writing fic. It's a bad idea, kids.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~wow surprise surprise i'm back to realistic au~~  
>  If I get the French wrong, please correct me. ~~I am but a lowly French IV student...~~


End file.
